Feuding Yanson bus owners eye reconciliation

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines —The feud among siblings over the control of Yanson Group of Bus Companies (YGBC), one of the largest transport firms in the country with more than 4,000 buses, appears to be heading for a reconciliation as the parties are now considering a settlement.

Roy Yanson, who ousted his younger brother Leo Rey as president of the company, has called on his siblings and mother Olivia to resolve the issue among themselves in a special board resolution issued last July 7.

“Let us meet and sit down as one family. Let us set our differences behind us and talk. Let us forgive each other,” Roy said in an appeal to his mother and his five siblings.

“No one will win in this battle. One, or some of us may win the seat of power but we will all stand to lose as a family. Enough is enough,” he added.

Olivia’s lawyer Norman Golez said the matriarch is open to reconciliation talks with her eldest son but he should show his sincerity by agreeing to return her shares of stock in the Yanson Group that were taken by Roy and his other siblings Celina, Emily and Ricardo Jr. from her or at the very least return the mother’s voting rights.

Golez added that the call of Roy for reconciliation does not change anything until he returns his mother’s shares of stock to prove his sincerity.

The YGBC, the 52-year-old conglomerate founded by the late family patriarch Ricardo Yanson Sr.,was established in 1968. The firm has about 18,000 employees who provide transport services to 700,000 passengers daily in the Visayas and Mindanao.

The Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed the writ of amparo petition of Roy, more than a week after he filed it last Aug. 9 against some officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP). 

A source close to the SC said that the en banc dismissed on Tuesday the amparo petition for “violation of doctrine hierarch of court and lack of merit” after it did not see any threats of disappearance, which is the function of the writ of amparo. 

Roy filed the petition against PNP chief Gen. Oscar Albayalde, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief Maj. Gen. Amador Corpus and other police officers after his siblings were “unlawfully detained and deprived of their liberty.”  

The petition stemmed from the alleged “forcible entry” of the provincial police officers into the compound of the Vallacar Transit Inc. amid corporate control issues between two feuding factions of the Yanson clan. 

Siblings Celina, Emily and Ricardo Jr., who installed their brother Roy as president of the bus company, a move dismissed by Leo Rey as illegal, are also amenable to a settlement “within the bounds of the law.”

“While reconciliation is not far from their minds, it must however, be within the bounds of law and justice,”  said Emily, one of the board members and vice president of Vallacar Transit Inc., a subsidiary of Yanson Group.

“Leo Rey must first stop committing acts beyond the bounds of the law, and follow the family constitution, and the shareholder’s agreement that he himself agreed and signed in 2010 and 2013 respectively,” Emily added. 

Leo Rey also welcomed the call of his elder brother Roy for a family reconciliation. 

But Leo Rey asked his four siblings to support their plea with action and apology to once and for all end the family feud that affected the operations of the country’s largest bus company.

“To me, reconciliation not supported by action is useless,” Leo Rey said.

Leo Rey asked his siblings to let their respective lawyers do their work of corporate resolution as part of the family reconciliation. 

“It is not ‘forgive and forget’ as if nothing wrong had ever happened, but forgive and go forward, building on the mistakes of the past and the energy generated by reconciliation to create a new and better future,” Leo Rey said. – With Robertzon Ramirez